August, 2010 Volume 6, Issue 8

Applause! Bill Frazier

By Ray Jones, Program Guy

Here are some words of praise for Membership Man Bill Frazier, and to extol his "Barbershop Blitz" program which is based on "Chapters Helping Chapters".

Our Central Oregon High Desert Harmoneers had gone through a very fallow period after losing our highly qualified front line Director, Dr. Clyde Thompson. Members had drifted away, or followed Clyde to one of his other local vocal groups. We finally engaged a new Directress, Miss Rebecca Smith, about a year ago, and have started a steady turn-around, espousing the teachings of Chuck Greene and preparing to be publicly acceptable once again.

More recently, we got connected with Bill Frazier, and his "Blitz". It turned out that we did not require his high octane Blitz, designed for chapters on life support, but could really benefit from his "Modified Blitz" which gives us access to the help he can summon with his magic wand. We are planning a major guest night, and he will be called on to get help from district people to perform and show a bigger face than we could alone. We look forward to having some outside coaching. Bill also receives and comments on our weekly meeting scripts as well as board meeting minutes.

Most recently both our director and Assistant Director were to be on vacation at the same time. Bill stepped in and, at our request, ran the musical portion of the evening, introducing some concepts that we were able to have our directors incorporate into the regular routine. One such concept that I am sure all the guys in the chairs in the society would appreciate, is the concept of singing the song to be reviewed ALL the way through two times before starting the fixes. It is informative to see how much stuff fixes itself between time one and time two.

Our chapter can attest to the value of the sort of backup that Bill's program provides, and we will keep relying on the help he and other chapters can provide out here in the lonely desert.